Society

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About the Book

What is the nature of our current societies? Do we see a clash of civilizations, or the end of history? The advent of globalization, or the birth of the network society? Are we witnessing the emergence of a risk society, or the advent of the knowledge society? More fundamentally, is ‘society’ an ideological construct that should be abandoned?

Coming into English from the Latin term ‘societas’ via Old French ‘société’, the etymology of ‘society,’ in the sense of a system adopted by a group of co-existing individuals for mutually beneficial purposes, can be traced back at least to the mid-sixteenth century. By the Age of Enlightenment, ‘society’ was increasingly used in intellectual discourse to characterize human relations, often in contrast to notions of ‘the state’. During the nineteenth century, the concept was subject to highly elaborate treatment in various intellectual fields, such as political economy, philosophy, and legal thought; and ‘society’ continues to be a central conceptual tool, not only for sociology, but also for many other social-science disciplines, such as anthropology, economics, political sciences, and law. The notion resonates beyond the social sciences into the humanities; it is a fundamental concept, like nature, the universe, or the economy. Moreover, ‘society’ remains a highly contested concept, as was demonstrated, for example, by the controversy surrounding the former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s pithy assertion of the neoliberal economic wisdom that ‘there is no such thing as society’ (Woman’s Own, 31 October 1987); and by the term’s rehabilitation at the turn of the twenty-first century, not least with the ascendancy of the notion of ‘civil society’.

This four-volume collection, a new title in the Routledge Critical Concepts in Sociology series, brings together both canonical and the best cutting-edge research to document the intellectual origins and development of what remains a key framework within which contemporary work in the social sciences in general, and sociology in particular, proceeds. Edited by Reiner Grundmann and Nico Stehr, two leading scholars in the field, this Routledge Major Work makes available the most useful, important and representative treatments of the subject matter, and helps to make sense of the great variety of perspectives and approaches in which social scientists and other thinkers have understood, and continue to understand, society.

Fully indexed and with a comprehensive introduction newly written by the editors, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Society is an essential reference work, destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital research resource.

4. John Locke, ‘Of the State of Nature’, Second Treatise of Civil Government (London: 1821), pp. 189–93, 195–9.

5. Charles de Secondat Montesquieu, ‘Of Laws in Relation to the Nature of the Climate’, from Esprit de la Lois, in The Making of Society: An Outline of Sociology, ed. Victor F. Calverton (New York: Modern Library, 1937), pp. 178–93.

6. Adam Smith, ‘Of the Principle which Gives Occasion to the Division of Labour’, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1793), pp. 19–25.

7. Immanuel Kant, ‘Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose’, Humankind and Society, pp. 1–10.

8. Jean Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse on a Subject Proposed by the Academy of Dijon: What is the Origin of Inequality Among Men, and is it Authorized by Natural Law (1754), trans. G. D. H. Cole (extract).

10. John Stuart Mill, ‘The Authority of Society over the Individual’, from On Liberty, in Victor F. Calverton (ed.), The Making of Society: An Outline of Sociology (New York: Modern Library, 1937), pp. 237–58.

12. Adam Ferguson, ‘Part Fourth: Of Consequences that Result from the Advancement of Civil and Commercial Arts’, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Cambridge University Press, 1999 [1767]), pp. 172–93.

20. Karl Marx, ‘The Material Forces and the Relations of Production’, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (New York: International Library Publishing Co., 1904), pp. 11–13, 265–9, 291–2.

21. Johann Gottfried Herder, Preface to The Reflections on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind and ‘The Human Being is Predisposed to the Power of Reason’, in Hans Adler and Ernest Menze, Johann Gottfried Herder: On World History (New York: Sharpe, 1997), pp. 110–15, 116–27.

22. John Millar, The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks: or, An Inquiry into the Circumstances which Give Rise to Influence and Authority, In the Different Members of Society (Printed for William Blackwood, South-Bridge Street; And Longman, Huest, Rees, & Orme, Paternoster-Row, London, 1806 [1771]) (excerpt).

About the Series

The Routledge Critical Conceptsin Sociology series provides concise, authoritative reprints of key articles in sociology, collecting the essential secondary literature on key subjects. Edited by acknowledged leaders in the field, each set puts the development of fundamental concepts into their historical context, and provides students and researchers with a clear snapshot of current thinking. Collections span a multitude of subject areas, including religion, multiculturalism and celebrity.